Major Wins as Measure of Greatness

[JWL1957]

I also believe Hagen got screwed in the majors catagory. The Western was considered a major by the players prior to the Masters.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Yes, the Western Open was once a major tournament, as was the North & South. But, on to the question the thread asks. There are certainly other measures of greatness than major championships.

Total number of PGA tournaments won.
The number of times a player was the tour's leading money winner.
The number of times a player won the Vardon Trophy.
The number of Ryder Cup teams the player was on.
The number of years in which the player won at least one PGA tournament.
Number of weeks in the top 50 in the World Rankings. Number of weeks at number 1 in the World Rankings.
(These last two are too recent to be primary contributors to the discussion, though.)

Yes, majors count for a lot, but they are not the only measure, and they don't trump all the others, as I see it.

[Acropo]

Yes, the Western Open was once a major tournament, as was the North & South. But, on to the question the thread asks. There are certainly other measures of greatness than major championships.

Ah. I thought the question was about all-time, world-class greatness. I didn't realise it was just about US players.

(The North & South? Not one I've heard of as a 'Major' before)

[The Recreational Golfer]

If the question were about all-time, world greatness, who would be added from outside the U.S.? Henry Cotton, Bobby Locke, Peter Thompson come to mind for me from the era before foreign-born players played regularly on the PGA Tour, although Gary Player didn't play exclusively on that tour, either. Any others you can think of? I just woke up and don't have complete access to my memory banks.

But you're right. Professional golf is bigger than the PGA Tour. If we were to include players who didn't spend their career over here, how would we identify the great ones? Total worldwide professional wins could be added to the list I proposed. Any others?

The North & South was played at Pinehurst every year, and in the 20s and 30s was regarded as a major. Its prestige gradually diminished, and the tournament folded in 1951.

[sean_miller]

If the question were about all-time, world greatness, who would be added from outside the U.S.? Henry Cotton, Bobby Locke, Peter Thompson come to mind for me from the era before foreign-born players played regularly on the PGA Tour, although Gary Player didn't play exclusively on that tour, either. Any others you can think of? I just woke up and don't have complete access to my memory banks.

It was regarded as a major by whom? When was the term "major championship" even coined? Regarding all the individual stats in your earlier list, I can't remember the last time any of them came up in conversation.

[Acropo]

If the question were about all-time, world greatness, who would be added from outside the U.S.? Henry Cotton, Bobby Locke, Peter Thompson come to mind for me from the era before foreign-born players played regularly on the PGA Tour, although Gary Player didn't play exclusively on that tour, either. Any others you can think of? I just woke up and don't have complete access to my memory banks.

Harry Vardon, definitely. James Braid and JH Taylor probably. More recently: Seve Ballesteros (who played quite a bit on the PGA Tour in the early 1980s, I know - he was having an argument about appearance money on the European Tour at the time). There's an argument for Tony Jacklin, too (again, he did play on the PGA Tour a lot). Greg Norman (mostly o/s USA); Ernie Els (only just joined the PGA Tour full-time). If you exclude the following, because they didn;t win a lot on the PGA Tour because they were either 'world' golfers or were centred elsewhere then the list of 'other event winners' would be missing a few: Ian Woosnam; Bernhard Langer; Dai Rees; Colin Montgomerie. There is also an argument for Peter Alliss, who was the first to win 5 events in one year on the European Tour (I wouldn't argue for him as an o/s player but some tell me he was), and Christie O'Connor - notable for his amazing efforts when so plastered he could hardly stand, if nothing else!

Those, btw, are just from the 20th Century...go back further and you have Old and Young Tom Morris; Willie Park; etc, etc. And what about Bobby Jones? Never a member of the PGA Tour, never allowed to play in the PGA Championship - for which, 'm sure, the Hage was most grateful! I think the Majors has to be the ultimate measure of greatness, because they are open to allcomers (PGA more recently, accepted, but in general).

The North & South was played at Pinehurst every year, and in the 20s and 30s was regarded as a major. Its prestige gradually diminished, and the tournament folded in 1951.

You learn something new every day. Did you ever hear of the Dunlop British Masters? It was pretty big for a while...

[The Recreational Golfer]

for sean_miller: first of all, let me congratulate you on your use of the word, "whom." It gets used so seldom these days, and then incorrectly. Good work. As for the North & south, read any history of American golf and you'll find out about it, along with when the term "major" was coined.

The other stats haven't come up in the conversation, but I am suggesting, in response to the thread, that they should. Number of majors won is too period-specific to be a useful historical criterion, and golf records in general, unlike the sport of baseball, which has a reasonably uniform set of playing records going back over 100 years, don't lend themselves to comparing players from in different eras.

Maybe we could add to the list, Routinely thrashed anyone who showed up, and settle for naming the best of an era.

for Acropo: Boy! I really must not have been awake! Good list. I had Greg Norman in mind as a great player who would be unfairly overlooked by the "majors only" crowd. Then Jones and Hagen, were there ever stronger competitors than either one? (See Thrashed . . ., above.) Jacklin, Rees, Montgomerie, Langer, Woosnam, are in the second tier in my book, not golfers you would have thought of for more than a short time, if at all, as the finest player in the world. Vardon? See Thrashed, etc.

[sean_miller]

for sean_miller: first of all, let me congratulate you on your use of the word, "whom." It gets used so seldom these days, and then incorrectly. Good work. As for the North & south, read any history of American golf and you'll find out about it, along with when the term "major" was coined.

I realize its usage doesn't match the sentence.

[Acropo]

Number of majors won is too period-specific to be a useful historical criterion, and golf records in general, unlike the sport of baseball, which has a reasonably uniform set of playing records going back over 100 years, don't lend themselves to comparing players from in different eras.

Disagree. The point about the Majors is they DO have longevity - they were the events that all the leading players played, against each other, and right back into the 19th Century - with the exception of the Masters, obviously. Not every time - the British and European players didn't play the US events from 1939, for obvious reasons...how many more would Henry Cotton have won if he hadn't missed those six years? And, of course, long-distance travel was much harder in the early days. But Vardon & Co travelled to play the US & Western Opens, and the Hage and Bobby Jones travelled to play the British Open.

Maybe we could add to the list, Routinely thrashed anyone who showed up, and settle for naming the best of an era.

In the end, that's all you can do - but the Majors are where the people turned up.

for Acropo: Boy! I really must not have been awake! Good list. I had Greg Norman in mind as a great player who would be unfairly overlooked by the "majors only" crowd. Then Jones and Hagen, were there ever stronger competitors than either one? (See Thrashed . . ., above.) Jacklin, Rees, Montgomerie, Langer, Woosnam, are in the second tier in my book, not golfers you would have thought of for more than a short time, if at all, as the finest player in the world. Vardon? See Thrashed, etc.

Langer, Norman and Woosnam all made No 1 in the rankings. Jacklin was rated at or around the best in the world for a few years, by golf writers and by his peers (a couple of outrageous shots by Lee Trevino seem to have broken his spirit - he did him over two years in succession.)

The rating of peers may count for something. Dai Rees was very highly rated - and he's probably unique in having a top-selling line of golf equipment without having won a Major. A close family friend (useful golfer, source of a lot of my knowledge of older days, excellent racing driver) made the point about peer rating in the context of Formula One. He said Chris Amon was one of the best he ever saw - but he never won a Grand Prix. Gilles Villeneuve was the best of his generation - never won a world championship. (He was pretty highly rated himself, according to other drivers, a couple of whom went on to F1 and Le Mans series. Held a few lap records for years at some UK tracks - could drive a saloon (stock) car brilliantly - his underpowered and underfinanced cars went round incredibly fast. Apparently, the secret is to set up the suspension as well as you can and then to apply balls of steel and go round corners quicker than anyone else...but I digress. Entertaining, though!) In the end, though, the people remembered, generations later, are those who have won the Majors - which is why they are the ultimate measure of greatness.